Kermit A. Brashear

Kermit Brashear adds the insight and experience of more than 45 years of legal practice to the firm. During his notable career, Kermit has served as a highly effective general and special counsel to a variety of entities. His roles include advising boards of directors and management, negotiating mergers and acquisitions, handling workouts and restructurings, conducting significant litigation and general representation.

Joshua A. Diveley

Josh Diveley is a member of the firm. He maintains a diverse practice, focusing his efforts on corporate law, partnerships, taxation issues, estate planning and probate, guardianships and conservatorships, employee benefits, including retirement plan design and implementation, and small business organizations and operations.

Aimee L. Lowe

Aimee L. Lowe brings attention-to-detail and a high level of legal and business expertise to clients at Vandenack Weaver. A skilled and seasoned litigator, she has successfully resolved cases in commercial, construction, real estate, employment, and trust and estate litigation. Her trial work includes cases in federal court and Nebraska and Iowa state courts. Her experience also includes serving as counsel in Real Estate, Title and Business Law transactions.

Jim Pieper

Jim Pieper specializes in complex statutory, administrative, constitutional, political and financial issues requiring research and analysis. He brings more than 30 years of expertise to Vandenack Weaver clients. His career includes work in law, politics, public policy, business and finance. His knowledge and work with data and information technology issues is of particular note and value.

Alex B. Rainville

Alex B. Rainville assists clients with establishing, growing, and protecting their businesses. This includes advising clients throughout all stages of the company, from initial funding, through complex transactions, and through successfully exiting the business. By leveraging both legal expertise and business strategy experience, Alex guides companies through debt and equity capital raises, entity restructuring, business unit divestitures, acquisitions, day to day business agreements, complex and unique business agreements, corporate governance, strategic planning, and all aspects of running, managing and growing a business.

Monte L. Schatz

Monte offers clients a wealth of experience in practice areas vital to business and finance. His expertise includes trust/probate, tax, securities, corporate and employer-employee relations law. Schatz's client service is strengthened by a 30-year work history that includes key executive positions with national and regional bank corporations.

Joseph R. Vandenack

Joe joined Vandenack Weaver LLC in an Of Counsel capacity in 2011. The association represents a reunion of sorts between Joe and his sister, Mary Vandenack. Both worked together previously in the firm that was founded by their father, Roger H. Vandenack.

Mary E. Vandenack

A founding member of the firm, Mary offers extraordinary energy and focus in the inter-related areas of tax, business, real estate, health care, and estate and business succession planning. Mary excels in dealing with the issues of closely held businesses (whether it be a one-person shop or an international operation).

Michael J. Weaver

Mike has over 20 years of experience as counsel to businesses and individuals in the areas of general corporate and business law, federal and state taxation, estate, retirement and financial planning, and trust administration and probate.

Mark A. Williams

Tax Law

At Vandenack Weaver LLC, we provide tax planning services for clients throughout the Omaha Metropolitan Area and across the United States. Our lawyers all have extensive backgrounds in tax, finance, and accounting.

Business Services

Businesses rely on attorneys to act as their advisors, their confidants and their defenders in court. However, these businesses often have to employ several different law firms to fulfill each one of these distinct roles. At Vandenack Weaver LLC in Omaha, we have the experience and skill to successfully handle any legal issue that affects your business.

Construction Law

Intellectual Property

At Vandenack Weaver LLC in Omaha, we make protecting your intellectual property our top priority. Many of our clients have spent years developing a product, idea or identity that defines who they are and their level of success.

Employment Law & Benefits

Health Care

Health care law is a complex field that requires lawyers to have a vast understanding of tax, business, real estate, employment law and asset protection issues in order to properly protect their clients' interests.

Energy Law

Litigation

Vandenack Weaver LLC has a long history of providing high-quality representation to clients throughout the United States. Our trial lawyers have extensive experience litigating complex civil and commercial cases in the following areas of law.

Estate Planning & Business Succession Planning

At Vandenack Weaver LLC in Omaha, we are committed to helping our clients build financially stable futures for their families and their businesses. Our firm represents clients throughout the United States with complex estate planning and business succession matters.

Asset Protection Planning

You have worked your entire life to accumulate the wealth, property and prosperity you have today. However, there are competitors, creditors and criminals who have no problem with taking away everything you worked for.

Franchise Law

Franchising is an important component of the U.S. economy and a growing factor in international business. Whether it is making the decision to franchise your business or deciding to purchase a franchised business, it is important to understand the nature of franchising and the details of the business.

International Tax and Transaction

We understand the importance of dreaming without borders and achieving success without geographical restrictions and we know the issues a corporation can encounter as they operate or try to expand for global operations are significant.

Attorneys at Law Licensed in Nebraska, Iowa, Michigan,South Dakota, Texas, Arizona, and Colorado

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Can a Sponsor of an Employee Benefit Plan Embrace Socially Conscious Investing?

Many investors have embraced various forms of “impact investing” in which goals other than merely maximizing the rate of return may be employed. Examples include “Environmental, Social and Governance” (ESG) investing, Socially Responsible Investing (SRI) and Economically Targeted Investing (ETI). In each case, the investor has broader goals than pure profit.

While an individual investor may choose “impact investing” as part of an overall strategy, the issues are different when one is acting in a “fiduciary capacity” on behalf of others.

Employers who sponsor employee benefit plans that are subject to the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) must be aware that they have a duty to plan participants to protect the assets that are held within such plans.

Thus, the question arises: Can a plan sponsor embrace socially conscious investing while maintaining its fiduciary duty to plan participants?

The Department of Labor (DOL), which is charged with enforcement of ERISA, has provided guidance over the years to address this particular question. In 2015, the DOL provided new guidance following concerns that its prior guidance was unnecessarily restrictive of such investment.

ERISA imposes a fiduciary duty on the sponsors of employee benefit plans. Such a duty imposes a high standard pursuant to which the best interests of plan participants is paramount. Accordingly, those charged with investment strategy are generally expected to judge possible investments on the basis of the relative economic merits, with the goal of maximizing returns for the benefit of the plan.

Nevertheless, the DOL guidance provides two different scenarios in which “impact investing” concepts may be employed, and further emphasizes that the use of such concepts does not impose any special burden of proof.

First, the DOL acknowledges that environmental, social and governance issues may not be merely “collateral” but may, in fact, be relevant factors in assessing the economic value of an investment. In such cases, a plan fiduciary is not prevented using those factors to evaluate the economic merits.

In addition, there is no additional burden or special documentation necessary when ESG factors are used to assess economic value. The DOL admitted that prior guidance may have implied as much, and it declared such language inoperable.

Second, the DOL allows non-economic factors to be embraced fully as “tie-breakers” among competing investments that are economically equivalent.

In other words, once two or more possible investments are determined to be of equal value on economic terms, then the fiduciary may choose to adopt “impact investing” principles to make the final choice. Again, there is no special burden or higher threshold that applies to such choices.

Accordingly, “impact investing” principles can be employed by those acting in a fiduciary capacity on behalf of an employee benefit plan, but such cannot be the sole, driving principle. They can be used as a factor in determining economic merit, or as a “tie-breaker” when choosing among investments of equal value.

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